On the need for sensor and actuator placement algorithms in nonlinear systems: WIP abstract

Abstract

In this work, we consider the problem of selecting-or placing- sensors and control nodes in nonlinear dynamic networks (NDN) which model the evolution of many cyber-physical systems. Specifically, we illustrate here the need for computational methods that obtain the optimal combinations of sensors and actuators, while considering the nonlinear behavior of NDN and and systems-theoretic performance metrics. This work-in-progress abstract briefly show-cases our recent work in this problem, which is divided into two steps: (1) Characterizing the classes of nonlinearities encompassed in NDN; (2) Developing tractable computational algorithms to solve the joint problem of selecting control nodes/sensors and designing feedback control/state estimators.